


She Shall Be Called Woman

by DontJudgeMeIShipIt



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 05:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14763908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontJudgeMeIShipIt/pseuds/DontJudgeMeIShipIt
Summary: 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.23 The man said,“This is now bone of my bonesand flesh of my flesh;she shall be called ‘woman,’for she was taken out of man.”Genesis 2:22-23





	She Shall Be Called Woman

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please be kind as I've only recently discovered these lovely souls, but they've touched my heart, and I just felt compelled to imagine a moment of realization between them where a future together becomes a real possibility. I feel like maybe EVERYONE sees it but them. Here's hoping for a little clarity for these sweet ice dancing cupcakes.
> 
> Scott and Tessa--if you ever see this, I wish you both nothing but the greatest happiness in life.

He thinks things started to change,  _ really _ change, after her second surgery.

 

_ It’s ok...I won’t break, Scott, _ he remembers her saying, her sweet breath puffing hotly against his neck as she stared up at him, her eyes wide and solemn and so, so green.

 

He remembers looking at her then, taking her in and truly  _ seeing _ her for the first time in a long time--years, maybe.  He’d realized, suddenly, that she wasn’t his Tutu anymore, that she hadn’t been for a long time.  Gone were the skinny, yet graceful, limbs of the teenage girl he’d become so accustomed to over the years, and in their place were the long, sleek lines of equally graceful, yet visibly more toned, capable extremities.  The delicate torso of her youth was now replaced by the serpentine core of an athlete, capable of coiling itself around him and rolling her body in a gravity-defying crawl along his skin, from hip to shoulder.

 

This Tessa was new.  She was  _ strong _ .  She was a woman.

 

That last part rattled him.  

 

Rattles him.  Present tense.

 

He’s obviously known for years that she’s an adult.  The passage of time and significant rites of passage like the sudden and uncomfortable appearance of bras and boyfriends had seen to that, as had more terrifying concepts like virginity and sex and independent living.

 

He’d watched as she turned sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one...twenty-five even, but those were just numbers on a cake.  She was still just, Tessa, a constant in his life as sure as the sunrise and his next breath. 

 

Well, maybe not quite as sure as those things.  There had been moments when they’d drifted apart...but never for long.  So, maybe not the sunrise, but definitely as constant as any person has ever been in his life, including members of his own family.  His family may have been around a few years longer, but not a single one of them has spent as much time with him as she has, especially not one-on-one.  And physically, he’s closer to her than anyone, even his ex’s, despite the fact that they’ve never crossed  _ that _ particular line.  It’s odd because even though they’ve never...there’s still a sense of knowing.  He can, and has, imagined it. Of course he has, he’s a guy, after all. A man. And she’s  _ her _ , so who can really blame him?  He tries to keep it in check, to be professional, respectful, but every now and then when they dance he just... _ knows _ .  He knows how it would be between them, how he would move, how she would respond, where her hand would land against the back of his neck, and just how far he could push her before…

 

Yeah, he knows.

 

But he also... _ doesn’t _ know.  He doesn’t know this version of her--this sexy, womanly, amazing, somewhat frightening version.  But deep in his bones, he wants to.

 

This isn’t the teenage girl his mom had warned him about all those years ago.   _ Be careful with her, Scotty.  I know it’s Tessa, but...she’s still a teenage girl.  Be careful with her heart, son. _

 

Somehow, despite the changes, he feels like maybe his mom’s sentiment still applies.  Tessa’s body is undoubtedly stronger now than ever before, and she has one of the strongest wills he’s ever encountered, but her heart is still just as sweet and pure as it was twenty years ago.  That part of her remains wholly unchanged. If anything that shy little girl in her is even less likely to put her heart out there these days. He’s partly to blame for that, and he knows it.

 

They talk pretty openly to the public now about their awkward separation during her first surgery, but there is still a lot from that time that they keep entirely to themselves.  Things they don’t even talk to their families about or each other. Never did, and probably never will.

 

Those months changed them both, and though they are stronger now on the other side of it, those changes are the type that come with lasting scars.  They’ve learned over the years to run their fingers carefully over the healing pink ridges, to acknowledge their beauty because those marks mean that they’ve survived something painful and thrived despite it...but they don’t linger too long there, and they don’t press their fingertips into those tender bits of flesh because they still ache just a little when handled too carelessly.

 

He flexes his fingers against the lithe muscles of her inner thigh as he guides her up, over his shoulder, and he feels the strength there, the power.  He feels the satisfying drag of his blades as he strokes along the ice with her in his arms. He marvels at the changes he’s noted in her body over the past two years, as they trusted in their team to help prepare them for one final shot at the Olympic games.  She’s solid now against him, and he pays close attention to the way her body compliments his. They’ve grown together, and yet somehow he’d missed her becoming a woman while he was busy becoming a man. Now that he sees it though, now that he’s ready for all of the things that a man wants for in life...he can’t imagine wanting any of it with anyone but her.

 

It’s like he’s Adam, and she’s his Eve--made from his very own rib, and such a part of him that he imagines he feels a little tug just near his heart as she skates away from him and toward the boards.

 

He watches her take a few deep breaths and sip lazily from her water bottle before pressing her fingers against a spot just below her left breast, almost as if she feels the pull, too.

 

His lips tip up at the corners, charmed.

 

Her eyes flick to his and she smiles, not seeming to mind the fact that she’s caught him watching her so intently.

 

His mother’s words float back to him again.  

 

_ Be careful with her heart, son. _

 

He blinks, startled.  He’d heard Alma’s voice as clearly as if she were standing right there on the ice next to him.

 

_ No one will ever know T’s heart better or treat it more carefully than I will, _ he thinks, as he strokes forward across the ice, toward her.

 

When he reaches her, he places his chin on her left shoulder and wraps his arms around her from behind, bringing his chest flush against her back.  He feels his heart beating against her skin through the thin layers of their work-out clothes, and as he feels his heartbeat begin to slow, his shoulders relaxing, he imagines hers slowing as well, until the two hearts beat in perfect unison.

 

“Hey, T?” he all but whispers, his voice soft as he speaks directly into her ear.

 

“Mm?” she sighs, content.

 

“Can you stop by my place later tonight?  There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

 

She turns to face him over her shoulder, their noses practically bumping, they are so close.  Her solemn green eyes stare into his, searching. She is devoid of make-up, and he thinks no woman has ever been quite as beautiful as she is.

 

For a second he feels a panicky feeling wash over him, and he’s tempted to avert his eyes, to withdraw his request, to hide--but he doesn’t.  He reminds himself that he’s a man now, that he wants things in life that men have--a home, a wife, children--and, more than anything, he wants those things with her.

 

And, like with the other thing, this he just  _ knows _ .

 

So, he doesn’t look away.  He gazes back at her, and he lets her look for as long as she needs to, lets her search for whatever it is that she needs to find in him.

 

When she finds it, she smiles.  And the smile is so  _ her _ .  

 

He thinks that just for a second he sees all of her--the woman and the girl, the past and the present...and, when he looks just a little closer, he’s pretty sure he sees the future, too.


End file.
